


Winter to Pry

by fingalsanteater



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drinking, M/M, Shotgunning, Smoking, Stancest Secret Santa 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-03-01 18:39:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13300869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingalsanteater/pseuds/fingalsanteater
Summary: Ford doesn’t fall through the portal. Stan’s determined to help him, but Ford isn’t being forthcoming with the problem.





	Winter to Pry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cheeziswin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheeziswin/gifts).



Stan plunks down at the kitchen table. It’s covered in legal pads with illegible - at least to Stan - scribbles and crumpled papers, and a jar with something inside that looks like slime and jiggles like gelatin when Stan pushes it across the table with his finger. His burn throbs under the gauze, skin pulling against the tape as he tries to get comfortable.

He fumbles a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket just to give his mouth something to do other than chewing Ford out when he finally decides to join him.

“Can I have one of those?” Ford asks, appearing next to Stan just as he flicks his lighter. He’s holding out his shaking, bruised hand like he expects Stan to pony one up. Stan inhales, then returns his lighter to his pocket, next to the packet. There’s only three left and Stan sure as hell ain’t feeling generous at the moment.

He exhales, blowing smoke up towards Ford.

“Second-hand will have to do you,” he says, and Ford withdraws his hand with a frown, retreating to pull up a chair. The chair is wedged against the backdoor, and Ford triple checks the locks before removing it and placing it back at the table where it belongs.

Stan hasn’t seen anyone so paranoid in, oh, about the three or four days since he himself was sweating in New Mexico’s idea of a winter, holed up in a motel room clutching a baseball bat. He has a hard time imagining what kind of trouble his brother got himself into that calls for crossbows and Stan taking some book to throw off the ends of the earth, but if what’s in the basement has anything to do with it, Stan has a feeling that it is serious.

“So,” says Stan, taking a drag of his cigarette, “who do you owe money to?” Stan chuckles a little at the idea of his brother owing someone money, but it’s really the only thing he can think of. What kind of trouble can nerds like Ford really get into?

Ford doesn’t laugh, but Stan imagines if he did it would sound as nervous and bitter as Stan’s own.

“There are things in this world far more important than money, Stanley,” he says with a curl of his lip.

Stan scoffs. He throws out, “That thing downstairs doesn’t exactly look like it came cheap.” It just seems an obvious statement to make - that big, hulking ring of metal with its glowing lights, buttons and strange writing that Stan can’t make heads or tails of must have cost a pretty penny.

Back when they were kids, if you’d ask Ford the time, he’d tell you how to make a watch - give every detail and then some. Then, Stan may had given him some good-natured grief over being a know-it-all, all the while secretly loving every word that came out of his egghead brother’s mouth. Now, Ford is tight-lipped, like if he lets one true word loose he’ll deflate. Stan can understand that a man is entitled to his lies, even if it’s pissing him off.

“Fine,” says Stan. “But I’m not leaving until we figure something else out. I’m not just gonna leave you here alone.”

He shifts uncomfortably and the back of the chair accidentally brushes against the burn. He hisses through his teeth, the ibuprofen Ford pulled from the back of the bathroom cabinet doing nothing for the pain.

“Are you -” Ford begins, but Stan interrupts him with an irritated, “Yeah, yeah. Don’t you have anything around here better than a few shitty pills?”

Ford opens his mouth to say no, but that look that Stan remembers from a million years ago, the one that says he has an idea, comes across his face.

“Actually, there might be something.”

When he’s upstairs looking for whatever, Stan stomps out the butt of his cigarette on the floor, then leans his head against the cool wood of the table for a brief moment, the weight of his exhaustion and pain and frustration crashing down on him. It’s only for that moment, though, because he boxes it back up, unwilling to let Ford think he’s too weak to handle whatever shit Ford is stuck in. And, he’s unable to afford to let his own feelings pull him down when his brother finally, finally needs him. (Even if he did try to send him away at first, he thinks bitterly, and then pushes that down too.)

Stan is back to carefreely slouching in the chair and pretending to read some of the scribbles on one of the legal pads when Ford returns.

Clear liquid sloshes in the jar Ford hands Stan.

“Vodka?” He questions, before he screws the lid off and catches a whiff. “Damn! What the hell is this? Two hundred proof?” He scrunches up his nose, almost convinced his nose hair is singed just from the fumes coming off the jar.

“Moonshine,” says Ford, “courtesy of my re-” he pauses, shuttering a flash of anger in his eyes, then continues, “my former research assistant.”

Stan wants to throw out a joke about a bad break-up, but it sticks at the back of his throat.

Instead he asks, “What happened?”

Ford is shaking the the jar of moonshine. “If the bubbles are large and disappear rapidly, the alcohol content will be high. This is more than one hundred proof at least, based on this-” he shakes the jar again - “ and knowing the man who made it,” he says, like it’s answering Stan’s question.

A few large bubbles are absorbed back into the liquid. “So, we can use this to fill up the El Diablo’s tank?” Stan asks.

“You still have that thing?”

“It's the one thing I do have,” Stan replies and takes the jar back from Ford. “We doing this?” He sloshes the jar toward Ford as an invitation, then takes a drink that burns all the way down and sits heavy as a stone in his stomach.

“Fuck,” He stutters when the feeling comes back into his tongue. “That’s… something. Your turn.”

“I never said I was drinking,” Ford says with a hint of anger in his voice. “I was just helping you self-medicate.”

“Well, thanks. First help you’ve given me in ten goddamn years,” Stan says, voice raised to meet Ford’s ire. He takes another swig and coughs.

“I’m trying to save your life, you - you fool!”

“Who asked you to, you stubborn ass,” Stan says. He tries to steady his breathing. He wants to fight more than ever, to get his hands on his brother and...

“Anyway, I thought I was here to save your stubborn ass.” It comes out more flippantly than he means.

Ford laughs. Stan hates the way it sounds. He imagines slapping the sound out of his mouth. The scene shifts in his mind before he can stop it and it’s his lips that pull that bitter sound from his brother’s mouth.

“You can’t,” Ford says. “You should’ve just taken the journal.” He drags the jar across the table and lifts it to his lips. He takes a drink and coughs only a little more than Stan.

Ford passes the jar back. “Can I have that cigarette now?” He asks.

“Yeah,” Stan says, mind still wrapped around the idea of kissing Ford. It’s been so long.

He’s not thinking now, just acting on instinct, on desire. He places the cigarette in his mouth, lights up and tells Ford, “Come here and get it.”

He expects Ford to tell him quit playing games, but he doesn’t. Ford gives him a look - a long, piercing look that’d make Stan dizzy if he wasn’t feeling a bit dizzy already. The combination of the moonshine and the incredible fact that he’s here, back with Ford where he belongs have his head spinning. Even though it did take Stan ten years down a dark and bumpy road to find “here,” and he’s still not sure what they’re up against, it doesn’t matter because Ford needed him.

And he really does need him, Stan just has to be patient.

Ford pushes his chair back, and comes around the table to Stan. The cigarette hangs loosely between Stan’s lips; he tightens them around the stick and sucks in a mouthful of smoke. With two fingers he brings it away from his mouth, keeping his mouth closed tight, smoke filling it.

He reaches up with one hand to grab at the lapels of Ford’s jacket, pulling him down, down until they are nose to nose almost. Ford’s breath is quick against Stan’s mouth, and he parts his lips, letting the smoke roll out like storm clouds across the sky. He can hear Ford’s intake of breath, sucking in the smoke that was just sitting heavy on Stan’s tongue.

Stan chases it, finding Ford’s parted lips and slipping his tongue in behind the smoke to lick at Ford’s bottom teeth. He smells dark and sour, like sweat and metal and blood, and tastes the same, but there’s a hint of smoke and that promise in the way Ford’s mouth moves against his own.

Keeping hold of Ford’s lapels, Stan finds his feet, legs shakier than when he first sat, and pushes Ford back against the table. It creaks, and scrapes along the floor before they find a balance.

“I didn’t ask you to come here for us to do this,” Ford says, voice dark as the winter woods outside, but missing the bite of the cold. His words are heavy as the snow on the branches and Stan is ready for the thaw.

Stan sighs and says, “I know.”

He takes another drag, slides his other hand up into Ford’s greasy hair, and presses their lips together. Ford melts into him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the identically titled The Deer song.


End file.
